


the downfall of eden

by Ford_Ye_Fiji



Series: Whumptober 2020 [19]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: :)))))), Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Tragedy, Character Death, Dead Number Five | The Boy, Future Fic, Gen, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy is So Done, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Stressed Number Five | The Boy, he doesnt get one, ish, uh literally, wow that's actually a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:41:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27210631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ford_Ye_Fiji/pseuds/Ford_Ye_Fiji
Summary: We're on our kneesOn broken groundGone too far to turn aroundLost our faith and lost the strength to carry onNo more hope and no more loveLet the children be our judge-Day 26: Migraine
Series: Whumptober 2020 [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947877
Comments: 15
Kudos: 121
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	the downfall of eden

**Author's Note:**

> highly recommend listening to the titular song ^-^

“Number Five, think through this very carefully-” 

Five turned, eyes bright and glowing, crackling a brilliant blue, ice cold and stiff as steel. His fingers twitched, energy arcing around them, setting the room aglow. He quite literally _shone_ , light twisting under his skin, pulsing with his heart, lacing through his veins. He sneered at his father standing over him, “You think I’m stupid. You think I’m foolish, don’t you, Reginald?” 

Reginald snapped, voice strained, “I _know_ so, Number Five. This is the height of stupidity.” 

Five clenched his fists, his head pounding, something in him begging to be released, heavy grief pulling him downwards, “Is it? Is this not what I'm here for? Is this not what I have always been _meant_ to do?” 

Reginald took a step forward, (was that fear in his eyes?), “Number Five, you _will_ cease this nonsense at once! Your siblings are dead, but you _survive_. Do not throw yourself away in a foolhardy endeavor to bring back the dead.” 

Five snapped, fingers curling, bones luminous, that feeling of pain pulsing and intensifying behind the back of his eyes, “Don’t you get it, old man? The Sparrow Academy is dead, the Umbrella Academy has been obliterated. Your mission to stop the world from ending has failed twice over! The apocalypse is _now!_ ” 

Reginald’s jaw worked, lips curling with disgust, “The timeline was intact before you traveled here-”

Five glared, the glow filling the room, lustrous and white hot as he stepped forward, snarling at his father, “No, I _saved_ the timeline, Reginald. I traveled back and tried to fix _your_ mistakes. And I made _so many_ errors but at least _I_ succeeded. I saved the world and I brought my family _home_. Everything you have ever done has only led to their destruction and the world’s end.” 

“The academy is dead, Number Five, but the world is safe. Whatever you are doing, whatever you will change, do not do it. The world remains and that is _all_ that matters.” 

That was a mistake. The headache worsened with his rage, “The world can burn for all I care, old man. _My family_ is what matters. What is a world worth living in if they aren’t there?” His laugh was mirthless and worn and _tired_ , “I've lived in a place like that and I can tell you that it’s not a world I _ever_ intend to return too.” 

Reginald’s glare deepened, “How can you be so foolish, Number Five? To throw away your life- to throw away the _world_ for something as worthless as them?”

Five wasn’t human any longer, skin seemingly made of light, eyes so bright as to leave spots behind, (or, more correctly, was he more human than he had ever been before?), “I wouldn’t expect you to understand Reginald. I do not think that you are capable of it any longer.” 

Reginald’s hands tightened around the top of his cane, lips twisting and brows furrowed against the illumination that was now his son. 

Five stepped forward, lifting his chin, “I _will_ bring them back. I told you, I would tear apart _reality_ to save them. Did you think I was joking? Did you think I didn't mean it? I will bend time, I will reach across space and bring them back, even if it kills me- even if it destroys the world. _They will not die again_. I won’t let it happen again.”

Reingald slumped, “Then there is no persuading you?” 

Five stiffened, “No.” 

He sighed, “So be it.” 

Reginald lunged, remarkably spry for an old man, but Five was already gone.

He had always been gone.

He would always be gone.

He was there, between one moment and the next, between atoms, across space, beyond time, beyond the web of reality- pulling at the fabric of space and time on a subatomic scale and, at the same exact moment, on a galactic level, ripping through the laws of man and nature. His form shrunk and grew warped, the person that _was-is-would be_ Number Five shrieked and held-holding-will hold his head, splitting in half across the dimensions, made manifest as an ache so intense that it was ripping him apart. 

Reality bent and fractured, the world burning in flames, freezing in ice, imploding eternally across the infinite reaches of time and towards the end of the universe, reality distending. His mind ached, filled with galaxies and stars, the nebulous expanse of time stretching onwards forever. The fabric split, torn down the middle. 

In Reginald’s little corner of reality, he _would-does-did_ brought his cane down, Five vanishing with a pop of energy so bright it blinded him- blue and white power slamming outwards with the phantom boom of thunder, crackling and snapping across the floor and up the walls. The room creaked and swayed, groaning with the pain- as if it too felt the hefty weight of the break in the laws of reality. 

Reginald struggled to sit up, gasping, unable to see, blinded by the light. 

Number Five was gone, or merely spread so far across time and space that he was not gone, no, merely _everywhere at once_ \- and then- in that moment between moments, it was _quiet_. Infinite endless silence sucking at the soul and- in the space between one breath and the next, between the tick of the seconds, between heartbeats- reality broke, time and space shattering as the universe imploded in exactly the manner it had begun- in a thunderous clap of light. 

The apocalypse was then, was now, and would always be- inevitable. 

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is here: https://ford-ye-fiji.tumblr.com/


End file.
